Rare Air Raid Atari game worth at least $30K

Shane McGlaun, 5th November 2012

It never ceases to amaze me just how many classic toys I owned, broke and threw away. Sadly, most of them are worth some serious money today.

For example, I once had not one - but two - of those green Stretch Armstrong lizard companion monsters that are worth a small fortune today. I threw them both in the trash after my Stretch Armstrong busted when I was a kid. What good was Stretch Armstrong's enemy without Stretch? Pity too, because those things are now worth thousands and thousands of dollars.

I also had tons of old Atari video games along with two consoles that my family stuffed into a donation bin after buying our original Nintendo back in the day. I never thought (as a kid) that any of those old video games would be worth money.

Now as some of you veteran games probably know, one of the rarest Atari 2600 video games is Air Raid, a title I doube most of us played at the time. Remember, the game didn't sell all that well, and therefore, it's one of the rarest of all Atari 2600 title made. It's said that there are only 13 copies known to exist. Well, there were 13 known to exist until a man named Harv Bennet and his daughter found a copy of the game that had been in storage for 20 years - in completely pristine condition. The only thing we don't see in the video is the manual.

You can see the duo flipping through tons of old school Atari cartridges that seem to be in perfect condition. Harv notes when he finds the game and pulls it out of the storage container that it didn't even have a sticker because it was given to him by an Atari rep rather than being a game he purchased at a store. Lucky for Harv, a copy of the game sold on eBay in 2010 for $31,600.